This category provides reports from the perspective of the type of content that is provided by an applications. Content type category items are associated with the file extensions in the URL (Universal Resource Locator). For example, a URL that ends in
.jsp is considered to be part of the Java Server Pages content type. Metrics in this category can provide answers to these questions:
• What is the average end-to-end time for a content type? • What volume of traffic is generated by a content type? • How often is the content type redirected?
Some common content types include:
Extension Content Type
.asp Active Server Pages
.class Java applets
.css style sheets
.gif GIF images
.html HTML pages
.jpeg JPEG images
.pdf Adobe PDF files
.php PHP script files
Page
This category provides reports from the perspective of a Web page. Web pages consist of one or more page elements. A typical Web page download starts with a single component download. Then this component will often reference other components that need to also be downloaded to complete display of the page. Each Web page is uniquely identified by the URL (Universal Resource Locator) that is requested by the user agent. The system tracks each Web page as it is downloaded, identifying which other
components were included in the download as well as the performance characteristics of the download. All requests for a given Web page are analyzed to provide a unified view of the performance for the Web page.
Metrics in this category can provide answers to these questions: • How often are users downloading a the page?
• What is the performance users are experiencing downloading the page? • How often is the page timing out?
• What are the slowest (or fastest) page elements on the page? • What are the access speeds of users that are accessing the page? • What volume of traffic is generated by the page?
Hit
This category provides reports from the perspective of individual URLs (Universal Resource Locators) or hits. Hits can as simple as a gif that is embedded in a page to a Java applet that is downloaded to provide some service. Anytime a URL is requested from a site it is monitored until the download is complete. All requests for the given URL are analyzed to provide a unified view of the performance for that individual URL. The metrics in this category allow content developers to identify problem URLs to redesign, remove, or off-load onto a cache server.
Metrics in this category can provide answers to these questions: • What is the size of the hit?
• How often is the URL downloaded?
• What is the performance of the URL?
• How much time is spent processing the request for the URL? • How often is the URL redirected?
• What volume of traffic is generated by the URL?
Path
This category provides information on the common paths taken by end users navigating through the pages of an application. A path consists of a series of pages that were clicked on during a user session. The first page of a path is the first page a user clicked on. The last page in a path is the last page the user viewed before exiting the site. The system only includes paths that are traversed by more than one user. Also, if a user goes to the same page more than two times consecutively, as can happen when the user hits a browser Refresh button, then that page only shows up once in the path.
Metrics in this category can provide answers to these questions: • Which paths might be candidates for configured services? • How often is the path traversed by users?
• What is the total end-to-end time required for all pages in the path? • How much total time do users spend traversing the path?
Site
This category provides metrics from the perspective of a Web site. A Web site consists of all of the Web pages and page elements that are requested from the site. While a Web site may physically be made of many Web servers, content for the Web site is identified by the hostname part of the URL used to request the content. Often there are several alternate names, or aliases, for the same site. In this case, resources requested through the alternate names are all considered part of the same Web site. The reports in this category give content developers a starting point for determining which sites may be having performance problems or which sites uses are having trouble navigating. Metrics in this category can provide answers to these questions:
• How many users are accessing the site at the same time? • How much time do users spend on the site?
• What is the performance of pages in the site? • What volume of traffic is generated by the site? • What errors are occurring in the site?